Saturday, March 31, 2007

Have you experienced the joy of finding a pile of antique Popular Mechanics or Popular Science magazines at a yard sale? Sometimes they're "take the pile for $5" and sometimes people figure out how cool they are and charge you accordingly.

Sunday, March 11, 2007

I think this short post about Fyodor Khitruk speaks volumes. I try to keep up with the scads of cool-looking new animation, on websites such as Cartoon Brew, but so much of it feels paper-thin and hardly heartfelt. Bravo to "Gorelov1976" who brought our attention to these Russian chestnuts on youtube, and to Amid at Cartoon Brew for stating his case so well.

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Thursday, March 01, 2007

It was meant well, but in reality the commitment to nurturing a marriage and three kids, the crushing responsibilities of my new job, a serious time commitment to maintaining my 114-year-old church building, and now an adopted beagle-type creature have dealt the comic (and recording - sorry, Darryl) a death blow.

There was a slow, solemn knock at the door, and when I opened the door I met Reality. Reality shook his hickory cane at me, opened his dusty, cobwebby mouth, and said "Quit advertising the comic, because you aren't drawing it."

So, sadly, I am pulling the plug on my imaginary comic book, and dasbrick.com. I will most likely keep posting to this ridiculous blog, but somehow a blank page and a pen just scares the bejeezus out of me these days.

Afanasy Nikitin

Afanasy Nikitin was the first Russian to explore India, which he wound up doing in about 1466.

In history books you will find very little about his dealings with the Shuisky sisters, or Alnus Rugosa, or Das Brick, because I made them up.

Ali Qushji and Perkin Warbeck and Jami the Persian Poet were real people, who sadly never really had anything to do with Russia or Afanasy Nikitin. The Kreml, while a real place, was probably not as fun as it appears herein.

So abandon all pretence of learning about historical Russia, ye who enter here.